


Dreaming Reality

by Talithax



Category: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Ficlet, M/M, POV First Person, Pre-Slash, Stand Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-14
Updated: 2012-09-14
Packaged: 2017-11-14 05:22:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talithax/pseuds/Talithax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A somewhat... unfortunate... mission has an unexpected ending for Will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreaming Reality

**Author's Note:**

> Written on a whim & self beta'd.

==============  
Dreaming Reality  
by TalithaX  
==============

 

~ Present Time ~

'Next time I get to seduce the rich guy.'

It was meant as a joke. An off the cuff, blurted out without thought, knee-jerk reaction to celebrate surviving both the insanity of jumping in the first place and the crazy as fuck, hair raising return to what, in that particular case, counted as Terra firma.

They were never, and foolishly I thought this would have gone without saying, meant to take me up on it.

It was a random, somewhat inane comment, not a Goddamn offer to be taken note of and stored away for future reference.

Biting back a sigh and hoping that my increasing inner turmoil is still being adequately hidden behind a very hard fought for mask of – 'oh yeah, I want you, baby' – sexual interest, I make my own mental note to try to watch what I say around Benji in the future and slowly, reluctantly begin to loosen my tie.

It's not the cold and calculating seduction – been there, done that, don't care for it, but you do what you have to do – side of things that I'm having the problem with. It's not even the fact that the target is male that's the issue as, well, I've not only also been there and done that before but, truth be told, actually prefer it.

It's just...

Does he really have to look like the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons brought to fleshy – and how – existence?

I mean... Seriously?

I've done a lot of things in my time, a lot of things that I'm not proud of and would actually give anything to have wiped permanently from my memory, but this... Somehow this is just the worst of all. And that's even without having laid a finger on him or, worse, far, far worse, had him lay a finger on me.

Just...

The sight of him. The thought of what's to come...

My tie slipping to the floor, I start to undo the buttons on my shirt with fingers that don't want to obey my half-hearted commands to work and try to ignore how his hand is gliding slowly downwards over his rolls of flab in the direction of the straining elastic waistband of his briefs.

This can't be happening. Not because of a throwaway fucking comment that poured out of my mouth in lieu of the far too obvious, 'hallelujah, I'm alive!' that, in hindsight, I should have gone with.

~*~

~ Four Hours Earlier ~

“You're up.”

There's something in the way that Benji says this that immediately has me on edge and I put down the paper I'd been reading to give him my full attention. “Excuse me?” I murmur inquiringly as I try to put my finger on the likely cause of my unease. It wasn't that I detected a malicious tone in his voice, more the fact he sounded... oddly gleeful that tells me I'm most likely going to be in for it somehow.

“You're up,” Benji repeats as he struggles to stop what could be either a smirk or a shit-eating grin from stretching across his lips. “That offer you made in Mumbai? We're...”

“It wasn't an offer,” I interrupt, wanting to put a halt on what I now know has to be coming right here and now. “It was just a statement, okay. A statement, not an offer.”

“Whatever.” Benji gives up on trying to disguise his merriment and the hybrid grin-smirk thing he's got going on threatens to take over his entire face. “You're still up.”

“Why me?” I query, deciding to change tack slightly because if I hear Benji say 'you're up' one more time I may very well live to regret my actions. “Why not you, or...” I point across the motel room to where Ethan is sitting in an armchair and staring with a strangely feigned expression of utmost concentration at his laptop. “Why not Ethan, huh? Here's a news flash for you, Benji. I'm not the... help, and it wasn't an offer.”

“Nope.” Benji shakes his head and places his hand over his mouth to smother a laugh. “Sorry, Will, but it's got to be you.”

Of course it does. Not liking either how this conversation is going nowhere fast or the look of amusement on Jane's face as she sits on the sofa doing, well, nothing other than watching Benji and I as though we were playing a game of tennis, I sigh and decide to just ask the damn obvious. “Why does it have to be me?”

“Because...” Benji shares a glance with Jane and, to the detriment of my rapidly fraying inner calm, they both fail dismally in their attempt to choke back laughter. 

“Because...” I prompt, gesturing at the quite possibly soon to be dead tech expert impatiently. If he doesn't get to the point in the next few seconds I may just well have to kill him. I don't want to, as he has his uses and there a times – now clearly not being one of them – when I'm actually fond of him, but... Seriously. Enough is enough.

“Because...” Benji catches Jane's gaze again and they share another knowing look / snigger combo. “Because you happen to look a little like Hawkeye.”

Hawkeye? What the fuck? Annoyance slipping seamlessly over to confusion, I shake my head and, despite knowing I'm walking straight into it, wearily seek clarification. “What are you talking about? I look nothing like Alan Alda.” 

“Who?” Jane's expression changes to one of doubt as Benji – the bastard – let's rip with a laugh that sounds suspiciously like a snort and even Ethan has to look away to hide a smirk.

“Not that Hawkeye,” Benji replies patiently once he's got his infuriating merriment under control. “Not the Hawkeye from M*A*S*H.”

“Oh. Good. That's a relief then.” I still feel both clueless and as though I'm the butt of some in-joke being played out by Benji and Jane for their own warped benefit, but there you go, at least I know now that I'm not considered to look like Alan Alda. “So... If I don't look like... that... Hawkeye, what Hawkeye am I supposed to look like?”

“The Avengers, of course,” Jane states in a matter-of-fact sort of way that tells me everything should now be perfectly crystal clear. “Just how old are you again anyway?”

“Oh. Of course. The Avengers.” Running my fingers through my hair, I fight the urge to start beating my head against the tabletop and look at Benji expectantly. “I hope you both realise I still have no idea what you're talking about.”

“The Avengers,” Benji repeats, his expression now one of dull amazement, as though he can't quite believe I'm as thick as I'm apparently giving every impression of being.

I sigh and try to convince myself that wrapping my hands around Benji's throat, while momentarily gratifying, would ultimately be more trouble than it's worth. It's like the... 'Jump... And I'll catch you' conversation on the plane to Mumbai all over again. Surreal, free from so much as the very concept of logic, and annoying as all hell.

“It's a movie,” Ethan offers as he shoots Benji a warning – 'stop baiting the clearly pop-culture handicapped'– look. “Lomas, that's the name of the target, by the way, Gareth Lomas, is a big fan.”

“Seen it fifteen times already,” Benji adds. “Which is some going seeing as it's only been out for three weeks.”

“Great.” This just keeps getting better and better. By all accounts I'm going to have to whore myself to some sort of sad, movie obsessed loser. Marvellous. I'm so glad I bothered to get out of bed this morning. “And I'm supposed to look like some character...”

“Hawkeye,” Benji pipes up.

“Hawkeye. Fine. I'm supposed to look like this Hawkeye character.”

“Well, the actor who plays him.”

And there I was thinking a movie called The Avengers was actually a documentary. Silly me. “And he would be?”

“Who?”

“The actor. Who do you think?”

“No idea.” Shrugging, Benji holds up his iPad so I can see the image of what looks to be a black leather clad archer on the screen. “See? Albeit in a far... dorkier... way, you kinda look like him.”

“Dorkier?” I exclaim indignantly. “Watch who you're calling...” Trailing off, I take a deep breath and rub my temples in a futile attempt to keep the headache I can feel forming at bay. “Fine. Whatever. I look like a dorkier version of some unknown actor playing a character called Hawkeye.”

“Who Lomas has the hots for,” Benji states.

“And we know this... how... exactly?”

Benji places his iPad carefully down on the table and gives me what can be best described as a pitying look. “By tracking his online proclivities, of course.”

“Of course.” It's doing little to stave off the headache, but I continue to rub my temples anyway as a truly alarming thought enters my head. “I don't have to dress up in that... that leather ensemble, do I?”

“Only if you want to,” Jane murmurs, looking me up and down with a glint of hopeful interest in her eyes. “I'm sure we could get our hands on...”

“No. He's not dressing up,” Ethan interrupts flatly as he slams his laptop closed with a tad too much force and stands up, his expression flushed. “It's enough that Will looks enough like him for Lomas to have immediately booked his services on our fake escort agency website. Benji, Jane. You've had your fun. Now bring him up to speed on the specifics of the mission.”

Curious as to both Ethan's vaguely over the top reaction and the way he won't meet my gaze but knowing better than to draw attention to it, I drag my chair over next to Benji's and with a shrug that could either be read as acceptance or resignation, murmur with a forced smile, “Go on then, hit me with it.”

~*~

~ Present Time ~

Just...

Fuck.

I'm a highly trained operative, for God's sake. As missions go it's a positive walk in the park. No guns, bombs, jumping into the unknown or threats of torture. Just seduce the revolting accountant-slash-numbers man of what is currently the world's largest known arms trafficking organisation and retrieve the SD card containing their inner most secrets he keeps – as one does – sewn into the elastic of his briefs and that's it – mission accomplished. The contents of the card will see that the organisation and the government officials believed to be helping them are brought to justice and... life will go on.

A few nightmares here and there are a small price to pay to put such a huge dint in the illegal trafficking of fire arms. And skin eventually stops crawling after a shower or ten. Right?

Oh dear God. I don't want to do this. I really, really don't want to do this.

I like men, and it's not as though I haven't had to prostitute myself before for the good of IMF, but Lomas, he... Words can barely describe how he's just not doing it – or anything positive for that matter – for me. He could be a lovely man, and he probably can't help his appearance, but... I just don't know if I can do it. I've already tried to imagine that it's not the Comic Book Guy (and making sure I was up to date both on who said Comic Book Guy was and what he looked like is yet another black mark Benji's scored against his name today) lying sprawled on the bed waiting for me, that it's...

Never mind.

Even if it had worked and I'd been able to successfully pretend the hands reaching for me belonged to Ethan, it wouldn't have been right and would have made an already unpleasant situation worse. The veil of imagination would have slipped at some point and I'd have seen who I was really in bed with, and...

It was just a bad idea, period.

My heart beating a dull tattoo in my chest – just man up, Brandt, and get it over with already – I hook my thumbs under the elastic of my boxers, my only remaining piece of clothing, and hesitate over pulling them down. Lomas, already naked save for a pair of once white, and now more a dirty beige colour, briefs with a large yellow, stylised A directly over his bulging crotch, gazes – leers – at me with a look of open longing on his face and licks his lips, leaving a trail of saliva over both his top lip and straggly ginger moustache. Nausea rises in my throat and not for the first time since entering Lomas' motel room I regret having made the mistake of eating before setting off this evening.

Time seems to stand still as I wait for inspiration – or, alternatively, for the ceiling to cave in on me, beggars not being able to be choosers and all that – to strike and Lomas waits for the show to begin. The show that I know is necessary to rid him of his filthy briefs so I can obtain the SD card and do my little bit for saving the day.

The show that, unfortunately, simply has to go on.

Gritting my teeth, I somehow resist the urge to down the contents of the open bottle of scotch on the table and begin to slowly, hesitantly, peel down my boxers. They're barely down an inch or two when I sense it...

Something. Nothing.

A barely perceptible change in the air movement, a subtle shift in the very feel of the room. Invisible and unnoticeable to anyone without a trained into them sixth sense for survival. I feel it, the heightening of my senses and the silent warning bells going off in my head, for all of a split second before my knees buckle beneath me and I'm out cold even before I've hit the carpet.

~*~

~ Present Time ~

I wake, with a throbbing headache and eyes that don't really want to open, lying on top of a bed. Cool air, not uncomfortable but not entirely welcome either as it tells me I'm still clad only in my boxers, ghosts over my bare flesh and I make a point of lying extremely still as I try to make sense of my situation. Oddly though, as I have nothing to base this on, the one thing I'm confident of is that I don't need to be afraid, that I'm safe. I don't know why I feel this way given that I'm close to naked and don't even know how I ended up wherever it is I am, but I do.

It takes a few minutes but eventually I convince my eyes to open and, turning my head slightly I make out the familiar shape of Ethan Hunt as he stands by the window in the motel room we'd all been in only a few short hours ago.

A-ha. So that's why I knew I was safe then. For reasons unknown I was extracted from the Comic Book Guy's clammy grasp and now I'm safe with Ethan.

“What happened?” I croak hoarsely as my attempts to sit up come to nothing and, giving up, I flop back down onto the mattress. “Were we compromised?”

“We weren't compromised,” Ethan replies, his voice quiet as he continues to stare at the darkened world outside the window.

“Was I too...” The fog in my head threatening to overwhelm me, I release a shuddery breath and, needing to know, murmur, “Was I taking too long?”

“No.”

When it becomes clear that Ethan isn't going to continue voluntarily, I try again. “Then what? What happened?”

The silence that greets my question is so deafening that I'm beginning to wonder if I hadn't just voiced it my head when, with a heavy sigh, Ethan finally turns away from the window and moves a little closer to the bed. “I called it off. I called the mission off.”

“But...” Just like the whole Hawkeye / Avengers conversation that took place earlier, confusion once again reigns supreme in my head. I didn't want to offer myself to Lomas, but I was going to. The IMF want the SD card and it was a means of getting it, so... What went wrong? “I'd agreed to do it,” I mumble as, with a burst of energy that I immediately regret courtesy of the flashes of white light that appear before my eyes and the piercing pain in my head, I somehow manage to push myself up into a half sitting position against the bed-head. “I... I was going to go through with it.”

“Of course you were going to go through with it. I never doubted your ability to see the mission through for a second,” Ethan replies, his gaze settling all too briefly on mine as, after a moment's hesitation, he seats himself gingerly on the edge of the bed.

“But...” The sweet oblivion of a pain-free sleep beckons to me, but I refuse to give into it without knowing just whatever it is that's going on here. Ethan's acting strange and it worries me far more than all the other uncertainty. “Ethan... What's going on? The SD card... We had to get the card...”

“The card's safe,” Ethan responds, directing his response once again to the window in preference, or so I'm beginning to believe, to looking at me. “I retrieved it when I retrieved you. The knock-out gas did its thing on both of you and... and it was mission accomplished.”

“But... Why?” I know I'm sounding plaintive, possibly even needy, but I just don't have it in me to care. Stretching out my hand, I trail my fingers down Ethan's arm, causing him to abruptly jump to his feet and return to his favoured position by the window. “I don't understand.”

“I...” Sighing, Ethan rests his cheek against the cool glass of the window and adds in a voice barely above that of a whisper, “I couldn't let him touch you...”

Firmly convinced that there's no way that I could have heard that correctly, I respond with the first thing that comes to mind and, truly eloquently, grunt, “Huh?”

“I couldn't let him touch you,” Ethan repeats, louder, far more adamantly this time as he slowly turns to face the bed. “The thought of that...fat lowlife touching you, I... I just couldn't bear it, okay,” he continues a touch breathlessly as his gaze locks on mine and I'm startled by the raw emotion in their blue depths. “That... That's all there is to it. He couldn't touch what I'm unable to touch so I took over the mission and went in gas cannisters blazing.”

“Oh.” Again, and hopefully it's only the remnants of the gas in my system rendering me incapable of coherency, with issuing forth with the first – and, let's face it, only – thing that pops into my mouth. I'd like say more, to – sing it from the rooftops – dare to believe for a second that it's actually true, that Ethan's previously unknown jealous streak caused him to take over the mission and extract me, because...

Because it's what I want so badly to be true. I want Ethan, focussed and determined and so Goddamn brilliant Ethan, to want me like I want him, like I've wanted him pretty much from the first time I laid eyes on him. Not being one to believe in happily ever afters though, I've kept my fantasies to myself and it's because of this that I know none of this can actually be real. Oh, the gas was, and probably the extraction as well, but everything else is just a figment of my fervent imagination, an after effect of whatever super secret compounds went into making the stuff.

But, whatever. Even if it is only an hallucination it's my hallucination and there's absolutely no reason I can't continue playing along with it. If I wake up drooling on my pillow with Benji standing over me with a camera to capture the moment for prosperity then, to hell with it, so be it.

“What you can't touch, huh?” I murmur, lifting my still strangely dithery feeling arm and gesturing for Ethan to join me on the bed. “You can, you know, if you want to. I wouldn't say no.”

“It's the gas talking,” Ethan replies as, with a weary shrug, he walks across the room to crouch by my side of the bed. “You won't have the memory loss associated with it that Jane and Benji are ensuring Lomas will, but...” Falling silent, he swallows hard and runs his fingers through his hair. “You were still knocked out by an experimental gas, Will, so... So you don't know what you're saying.”

Holding firm to the nothing ventured, nothing gained school of thought I throw everything I've currently got into grabbing Ethan's hand and tugging him up onto the edge of the mattress. “And if I wasn't?”

“Wasn't... what?” Ethan sighs as his shoulders slump and it strikes me that this would have to be the most unguarded I've ever seen him.

“Gassed. If I hadn't been gassed and was lying here offering you an open invitation to touch me, would you?” There. This may only be a dream, but at least I've said it.

His eyes widening slightly, Ethan sucks in a breath and, without looking at me, nods. “In a heartbeat.” 

“Then...” Here goes nothing. “Ignore the unfortunate foreplay of the knock-out gas and just touch me.”

He shakes his head and glances at me with that sad look in his eyes that, even in my current wiped out state pierces me to my very core. “You're not yourself and... Damn it, Will! Despite pretty much having you where I've wanted you for ages, I could never take advantage of you like this. It...” Looking away, he rubs his hands over his face and adds quietly, “It would be worse than not having you at all...”

Digesting Ethan's clearly heartfelt response and knowing that I won't be able to remain in this peculiar realm of half-consciousness for much longer, I take a chance and close my hand tightly around his. “Will I be myself in the morning?”

“Yes,” he murmurs with a nod as he once again looks down at me with obvious reluctance. “I never would have used it on you if there were known lingering side effects other than a headache and lethargy upon first waking.”

Headache and lethargy, huh? No shit.

“Good.” I try to smile, to appear reassuring, but only end up yawning instead. “Stay the night then and ask me again in the morning,” I offer, using my free hand to pat the empty side of the mattress.

“I...” Ethan glances at the empty side of the bed and, proving that there is indeed always a first time for everything, visibly trembles.

“Come on, Ethan. First you pimp me out to the movie obsessed Comic Book Guy and then you change your mind and gas me leaving me with the most God awful headache,” I whisper as, knowing I've played all the cards dealt to me, I slowly pull my hand away from Ethan's and close my eyes. “I think you owe me this... this chance to see if any of this is actually real, that I'm not just dreaming, so... Stay and ask me again in the morning. Please... Please just stay...”

Somehow I manage to get this, this... plea...out before sleep rapidly descends and for the second time this evening everything goes black.

~*~

~ Present Time ~

The dream still being real enough that I swear I can both feel the weight of a body next to mine and hear the soft, reassuring sound of breathing close by, I don't want to open my eyes and just want to remain in this comfortable state of delusion for as long as I possibly can. To wake up properly, to open my eyes and find myself alone in bed, it's just not something I want to face. It's inevitable, and I know it won't change anything, but...

The feel of the – surely – imaginary body sitting up causing me to lose my train of thought in a somewhat spectacular fashion, my eyes fly open as though they've got a life of their own and I find myself blinking under Ethan's searing blue-eyed gaze. He's still dressed in the polo top and cargo pants that he was wearing – in the dream? – yesterday and, granted he looks both worried and (most un-Ethan like) a little unsure, but he's real. He's really real and, just to make sure, of course, I pull my arm from out under the comforter and poke him in the thigh with my finger.

“If that's your way of saying good morning I may just have to rethink my hopes where you're concerned,” Ethan comments wryly as I drag myself up into a sitting position and, suddenly feeling happy to be awake, flash him a grin. “Just checking to see that you're real,” I reply, kicking the comforter fully off and kneeling in front of him so that I can gently cup his face in the palm of my hands and gaze directly into his eyes. “Now... If you want to ask that question again, the answer is still very much yes. You can touch me, in fact I may just have to insist on it.”

His grin mirroring mine and wiping all the worry from his face, Ethan leans forward and rests his forehead against mine for an all too brief moment before planing a quick kiss on the tip of my nose. “That's what I was very much hoping you'd say...”

~ end ~


End file.
